I have too many WordPress websites to provide content for them all and I outsource some of the work to specialized article writers on Elance. You can go there to expand your staff beyond just you and outsource a job that you would usually perform.
Unfortunately when I first started creating WordPress websites from scratch I wasted a lot of money on unnecessary mistakes. It is not always easy to judge how well a person will do a job from half way across the world. There is no face to face contact with some contractors, although I like to try and achieve this through Skpe. I have writers in the USA, the UK, and even Europe.
5 tips for hiring the right person on Elance.com
1 ** Be clear about what you want
If you are vague with your job description then what ever you haven’t mentioned, usually happens. It is almost your fault for not finding the right person on Elance.com. You need to be precise and take time writing your listing.
2 **Set a price range
Set a price range of what you want to pay because otherwise you are wasting both your time and the writers time when they put in a proposal. You do not want extravagant quotes coming in.
3 **Set you job job criteria
Set you job job criteria and be strict and stick to it. If you are upfront with the rules now, hopefully you will flush out the people that do not suit you. If they get freaked out when they see your criteria that’s good. You only want the right person for the job.
4 **Delivery for the job
Tell people exactly when you expect delivery because people can get very slack when working unsupervised. Just remember that the people applying for this job are from other parts of the world and have different work ethics. What you think is normal and courteous, may not be in their country.
5**Escrow
When hiring the right person on Elance.com always use Escrow which allows Elance to hold your funds until you are ready to release them. Do not release the funds before the job has been completed.
A friend of mine released $200 accidentally before receiving any work and the writer mysteriously disappeared from the face of the earth, along with the money. He used Escrow but his inexperience led him to push the RELEASE FUNDS button. If the writer had not supplied the work and the funds were still in Escrow they would have been returned to him. Elance is great that way.
Example job listing – hiring the right person on Elance.com
I need many articles but this job is for 25 to see how we work together. I am a serious buyer and will continue to give you work providing you adhere to these guidelines:
—–Criteria—–
*** You must be able to write in good flowing English.
*** You need to engage the reader and make them feel like you are talking directly to them.
*** You must deliver articles on time, as per schedule.
*** All articles are to be on the same Word 2003 doc. We do not accept word 2007. (This is so my VA can open them.)
*** The file name must be labeled clearly. Eg. Niche_yourname_1-10 and Niche_yourname_10-20
*** Each article on the Word document must have its own title.
*** All articles need to be 500 words in length. They should also contain subheadings and sometimes bullet points.
*** All articles will be checked through Copyscape so make sure you are providing 100% original content. No PLR content.
*** While writing an article you must wear red underwear. (Just checking if you are paying attention)
*** You relinquish all authorship of articles.
*** You must provide the same high standard throughout the whole project. If your output does not match your sample work then we will have to cancel our job.
—–Subjects—–
1. Subject one
2. Subject two
3. Subject three
—–Samples—–
See the attached sample and then choose a topic from above and write your own sample article to send to me. I will not accept previously written articles. I want you to choose from the subjects above.
—–Pricing—–
I am on a budget as I buy 100’s of articles a week on a variety of niches. For this project I want to pay $4 for 500 words, however depending on the quality of your sample, this price may increase.
I will not accept any bids higher than $100. Please do not waste your time if you cannot fit to our budget.
If your asking “WOW, did she even get any responses to this job advert?” Well the answer is yes! I had about 5 applicants and I actually chose 2. That’s how good they were.
Update: Since this post was published I have hired many more people to write for me. Hiring the right person on Elance.com or any other job website gets easier with experience. Also the key is to keep great writers busy with your work so they have no time to work for others.. Ha Ha.
Hiring the right person on Elance.com definitely requires that you scare a few people off first.
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mitz – who has written 187 posts on Wordpress Website builder.
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Hiring the right person highly depends on you. If you are not clear on what you want then you might just end up hiring the wrong person and it might not be his or her fault but yours. If you can conduct an interview then it can really assists you in hiring the right person.
Actually, no good writer will ever do work for money sitting in an escrow account. If the buyer dies, or gets in a car accident, or Elance goes bankrupt, all that work was a waste of time.
Seriously, if you use the escrow account to hold funds until you get your payment, you will get garbage for a product.
Great article! My boss has hired a few people to write articles for our blog to help with SEO, he picked 1 good one out of 3. I want to help him write future ads to put on Elance so we can get good writers. Also I stumbled upon this article because I was looking for a good web designer to do contract work every now and then. I don’t suppose you have any tips for writing elance ads for that?
Yes I do have one great tip…Go to odesk.com and search through the job listings to get ideas for what to put…Elance does not let you see as much detail as Odesk, however I like to hire people from Elance as I like the system.
Ah okay. Thanks for the reply mitz. I just want some clarifications.
Does the provider in elance paid an annual payment for them or the membership is totally free?
Elance gets a commission on a job. It is free to post jobs but the person doing the work needs to pay the fees. Therefore when quoting a job the person doing the job need to quote a price that includes fees.
mitz recently posted..Clickbank affiliate products that provide recurring income
My requirements for an article writer were the following: knowledge about marketing,SEO and excellent communication skills writtten.
Once you get onto a great writer, keep them!
mitz recently posted..How to make money online in 2011
great blog! added to my bkmarks
Hey Mitz I just love your post. It’s so to the point. I will be doing everything you say. Thanks so much.
wow, awesome blog.Thanks Again. Really Cool.
You really have to make sure you mention everything you want to get done or you will get burned…Elance.com is a great website but it can be costly if you do not know what you are doing?
Thank you for this informative post on websites. It has really allowed me to understand more.
Hey! Just had to chime in. I truly loved this article. Keep up the great effort.